A27017:449
The Saints' Everlasting Rest
The saints everlasting rest, or, A treatise of the blessed state of the saints in their enjoyment of God in glory wherein is showed its excellency and certainty, the misery of those that lose it, the way to attain it, and assurance of it, and how to live in the continual delightful forecasts of it and now published by Richard Baxter ...The saints everlasting rest, or, A treatise of the blessed state of the saints in their enjoyment of God in glory wherein is shewed its excellency and certainty, the misery of those that lose it, the way to attain it, and assurance of it, and how to live in the continual delightful forecasts of it and now published by Richard Baxter ...
London: printed by Rob. White for Thomas Underhil and Francis Tyton, 1650
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
The validity of that Humane Testimony, which here we have most use for, dependeth not on any Authority thereto conferred from God, (as Romanists fondly imagine,) but on men as sensible, rational, and of common honesty. The Testimony of the enemies, is more strong then of friends. Strabo witnesseth, Lib. 16. Geogra. of Moses, and the ancient Israelites, That they were truly righteous and godly men. So doth Josephus testify of John Baptist, and James: And Pliny of the Primitive Christians, Lib. 10. Epist. 101.
The validity of that Humane Testimony, which here we have most use for, dependeth not on any Authority thereto conferred from God, (as Romanists fondly imagine,) but on men as sensible, rational, and of common honesty. The Testimony of the enemies, is more strong then of friends. Strabo witnesseth, Lib. 16. Geogra. of Moses, and the ancient Israelites, That they were truly righteous and godly men. So doth Josephus testifie of John Baptist, and James: And Pliny of the Primitive Christians, Lib. 10. Epist. 101.
But I pass these, as not intending a full handling of this subject. The best that I know already extant on it, is Grotius and Du Plessis; and I would some able man would do yet more. For my own part, I have had so many rare convincing experiences of the fulfilling of Promises to me, and answering Prayers, by wonders of unusual Providences, That serve mightily to conform me, by seconding my Arguments: And were it fit to speak so much of my own matters, I would produce them for the confirming of others.
Were it not to digress, I should here express my admiration, That so many learned men should lean towards Rome, merely upon a conceit, That there is a flat necessity of some Ultimately Decisive, Judicial Expounder of Scripture, and that must needs be their Church. For they think it abominable, that every man should be Judg. At present I would but know of them, First, Whether they speak of Fundamental plain places of Scripture? or of more obscure, and of less moment? For the former; First, Where there is such Plainness, there needs a Teacher to the Ignorant, but not a Judg: Among Christians, Fundamentals are no Controversies. Secondly, And if the Judg mistake in Fundamentals, if we obey him, we must renounce our Faith. Secondly, If the Pope, or his Council of Prelates be